As technologies for synthesis and size control of the nanoparticles are advanced, it has been widely used. Thus new product based on nanotechnology has already appeared on the market and also have been developed. However, the large-scale discharge of engineered nanoparticles into the environment can potentially threaten the human and environmental health, safety problems of the nanoparticles become a pending problem.
Therefore, a demand for technology to identify the existence/nonexistence and a nanoparticle concentration should be increased to solve them. This is becoming important concerns to research an influence which the nanoparticles can exert on the surrounding and environment.
The existing particle sensor (Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0315992) is a device of detecting micro scale particle or corpuscles in the air other instead of detecting nano scale particle in all around condition, which does not have a sufficient sensitivity and accuracy to identify the existence/nonexistence and the quantity of the particular nanoparticles.
Also, recently presented nanoparticles sensor (Korean Patent Registration No. 10-0670590 and U.S. Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-0201660) is using an optical method or an electrochemical method as a method of detecting the particles.
However, there is a need for developing the particle sensor using a chip-type electronic element in order to manufacture a sensor for use in detection which can be measured rapidly with a low cost while being portable and convenient to be used.
Further, the chip-type particle sensor which is made smaller via a typical semiconductor process can be applied to various fields in a such way that it is directly bonded to the electronic machine, handheld machine, or consumer electronics which are widely used, and make it easier to detect the nanoparticles in a direct manner other than in the air and within a fluid and thus make possible ordinary monitoring within various media, which are not possible in the existing technologies.